Framed by a mysterious glass sphere in a locked study, a disgraced WWII investigator must outsmart his military mentor.
Arthur left Hallowell whimpering on his office floor, retrieving the revolver and emptying its chambers. He took the bundle of fraudulent deeds. The information was too vital to leave behind.
He found refuge in the dimly lit basement boiler room of a public library, the rumbling pipes a comforting, constant drone. He spread the stolen deeds on a dusty table, the paper yellowed and brittle. He needed to connect the dots between Garrick, Helena, and the micro-projector.
He pulled out the 16mm film spindle from his coat. The image of his own face, distorted by the lens, still haunted him. The micro-projector. Helena Krol, the ‘spiritualist.’
He remembered Helena’s reputation. A talented medium, but also whispered to be a former OSS operative, brilliant with optical devices. That was the cover. But the projector wasn’t a medium’s prop. It was military grade.
He thought back to the war. Technical intelligence units. Specialized equipment. He focused on the details he had observed inside the sphere – the specific lens assembly, the compact design, the unique shutter mechanism. German technology, adapted.
He began sifting through old military shipping manifests he’d obtained from Hallowell’s unsecured filing cabinet earlier, looking for anything related to optical equipment, particularly high-tech German prototypes captured during the final months of the war.
His finger traced down a faded entry: “Project Nightingale — optical intelligence kit, prototype 001. Captured, Munich, May 1945.”
Munich, May 1945. That was Garrick’s unit’s sector. The same unit Arthur had been temporarily attached to for interrogations.
He found another entry, a discrepancy report dated July 1945: “Kit 001, micro-projector component, noted as missing during transit from Munich to Arlington depot. Presumed lost.”
Helena Krol didn’t build the projector. She stole it. Or rather, she acquired it. From Garrick’s own unit, in Munich, in 1945.
“She wasn’t building them,” Arthur muttered to himself, the truth clicking into place. “She was holding onto his secret.”
Helena hadn’t been an inventor for Garrick; she had been a rival, a blackmailer. She had used the stolen projector to create duplicates of Garrick’s illegal financial ledger—the very deeds Arthur now held. This was her leverage. This was how she intended to extort him.
The whole game became terrifyingly clear. Helena had cornered Garrick. And Garrick, the master strategist, had found a way to silence her and frame Arthur in one clean, brutal stroke.
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